


The Farmer in the Dell

by undernightlight



Series: 2020 Writing Challenge [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Armitage Hux Has Feelings, Armitage Hux Needs A Hug, Brendol Hux's A+ Parenting, Farmer Armitage Hux, Reflection, Self-Reflection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-18
Updated: 2020-01-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:41:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22309582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/undernightlight/pseuds/undernightlight
Summary: The Order was gone, and he was now alone. It gave him time - too much time - to think about things.
Relationships: Armitage Hux & Dopheld Mitaka, Armitage Hux & Kylo Ren, Armitage Hux & Phasma
Series: 2020 Writing Challenge [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1603210
Comments: 3
Kudos: 12





	The Farmer in the Dell

He woke up and his back was stiff, like it had been for the past week, and he laid there for a moment, staring at the ceiling, debating whether it was really worth getting up. Apparently, he deemed it was without really realising, as he found himself pulling himself upright and to his feet. His hair was getting too long - longer than it ever had been before - and was starting to fall into his eyes. Though it was still just about manageable, he still wished it were shorter.

The small, cracked mirror over the sink showed his dishevelled appearance. He sported a beard now. He kept on top of it, trimmed it, but he didn’t risk a close shave when he could barely make out his own reflection to be human. His eyes had never been bright, but somehow they looked duller than they used to. He wasn’t quite sure if it was just him or his eyes had indeed changed colour, but they looked different to him, almost now completely gray.

He’d hollowed out too, his face and his body. His cheekbones had always been prominent, but now they were too prominent, too sharp and precise to look normal. Across his shoulders, his tank top didn’t fit properly anymore. It used to fit snugly against his skin, but now it hung loose, and the sleeves often slipped from where they were supposed to rest. His trousers were much the same story, sitting loosely around his hips; he had them awkwardly pinned at the side in an attempt to keep them from falling which was only half successful.

As he stared at himself a little longer, he remembered who he used to be and who he was now, and how big of a difference there was. Before this, he hadn’t been planetside in years - if you discount Starkiller, which he did - and it’d been even longer since he’d been around greenery. Green and brown and orange and yellow and blue.

Blue skies were still strange to him. On Arkanis, it rained nearly everyday. The few days when it didn’t rain, it was still overcast. Only maybe one or two days a year were the skies clear of clouds, and even then it was a pale blue, almost white itself. Where he was now, the skies were blue in the same way blood was red, vibrant and bright and ever present.

The sky was blue when he stepped out of his house. It was small and modest, not something he was used to; the house he grew up in when he was a child was large and empty and cold, and the ships were much the same but with harsher lighting. This house was different, with windows in wooden frames and an old kitchen and a bed with the odd broken spring. It was different but it was his. For as long as he could remember, things were never his. They were his father’s or they were the Order’s, never his own. But this house was his. To think that something he had truly belong to him and only him, and it wouldn’t be snatched away unexpectedly, was an unusual feeling, but he couldn’t say it was unwelcomed.

Like the past few days, the garden was looking a little worse for wear, but the crops were still surviving, and there was still enough for him to manage before there was any real struggle or concern. Being partially self sufficient was also new, and it also wasn’t unwelcome. It made him feel differently to anything he had in the Order, but he couldn’t quite place his finger on it. It felt like freedom and fear and fresh air, like after being locked in a room he was finally set loose into a large and daunting world. Maybe that was an accurate analogy, he thought, as he worked at weeding. It was a tiresome and time consuming process, but with little else to occupy him, he really didn’t mind.

Hux spent every morning going through roughly the same routine. That was something drilling into him at the Academy and he doubted it would ever be something he could rid himself of if he felt the need to. As of now, he didn’t mind having routine, it offered stability in a time he felt rather uncertain.

There were many benefits to living on the fringes; a small house in a remote area, close to a small village with only a few others - none of whom knew him - on a backwater Outer Rim world. He was as safe as he could make himself, though he wasn’t completely sure who or what he was hiding from. He knew the First Order had fallen. He wasn’t there when it fell, instead in a cloaked escape shuttle, but he knew. It left a bitter taste in his mouth even now. He’d worked his whole life in the Order. He was born into a falling empire, and from that, he raised a new one, a stronger, smarter, better empire. It was all he knew, military discipline and practice, and instantly he lost it all. Everything he’d ever done, worked towards, any and everybody he’d ever known, were gone. It made him feel rather lonely at times, like when he was a child. He tried not to dwell on it, but his mind needed to be kept busy.

He thought about his ship, the Finalizer, and her crew. He thought about the people he lost then and long before he was transferred. Mitaka was such a promising officer, despite turning down a promotion - he later found out Mitaka turned it down because it came with a transfer order and apparently he quite liked being on the Finalizer, and around Hux. He wouldn't say he was unfond of the young officer, and found himself smiling discreetly to the Lieutenant on the bridge when he'd done a magnificent job, which was always.

Phasma was a good soldier and the closest he’d ever had to a friend. He remembered when he first met her. Only a colonel back then, he was rescuing his father, and Phasma was there with two others, one of which joined the Order with Phasma. She wasn’t much older than him, maybe a year or two. To his surprise, they clicked. He didn’t often take pity on others, but when he watched his father destroy her home and all her clan, he felt it then. The fear and horror she was desperate to hide still poked through, at least for him it did, a man who’d been afraid of Brendol Hux’s power since he was born. Maybe that was why she so willingly betrayed him, helping him kill his own father.

She deserved better, and he missed her.

And then he thought about Ren. That was a lot to unpack, as he went about picking the vegetables. He'd known him for years. He'd just turned thirty and Ren was twenty five. He looked much younger than that, still resembling a boy. He was there when Ren first boarded the First Order ship Goliath - a year before they both transferred to the Finalizer. It was an unusual first encounter. Ren seems so confused, even scared, unsure of where he was or what was in store for him. Hux knew he was the Supreme Leader's Force-wielding apprentice, but not much more than that. He was dressed in dark robes that looked too short for his limbs and a hood that covered much of his face, despite how tall and broad he was. 

It was around the time they transferred when Ren got his mask, just before it actually. No one the Finalizer saw Ren without it for a very, very long time. Hux thought it was rather daft looking and it was obnoxious, and his cloak looked ridiculous flowing behind him when he stormed about. It all seemed rather childish. 

And they never got along. They would argue about the smallest, petty little things and he enjoyed it, he was sure they both did, getting under each other's skin as much as possible. Ren would go out of his way to annoy him, and he went out of his way to annoy Ren. It was just the way. 

Looking back though, Hux thought maybe he should've tried a bit harder. He didn't want to like Ren and he made that apparent. Maybe he should've gave him a chance. Maybe they could've gotten along. Ren was bright with strong intuition, and his close combat skills were unlike anything Hux had seen before. He had complete and utter obedience from his Knights, and they trusted him as he trusted them.

Hux wondered what had happened to Ren. He knew the Order was dead, but Ren wasn't with the Order when it fell. Hux liked to think - or hope perhaps - that Ren was alive somewhere. He didn't hope he was happy; Hux wasn't happy, and if he didn't deserve it than neither did Ren, but he hoped he wasn't completely miserable either. Hux hoped that Ren was surviving, same as him. 

He wasn't sure why, but believing that Kylo Ren was alive gave him comfort.


End file.
